2010 June
The Middle Ground #6: See, Tonight It’s Going Digital
So, IDW is looking set to take a temporary lead in the digital comics arms race, then.
For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, the San Diego-based company will apparently be offering almost its entire line through digital distribution a month after print debut, if recent reports are anything to go by. This is in comparison to, say, Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited, which has a release schedule that follows themes and movie releases more than anything else, it seems, or DC’s digital initiative that… well, doesn’t seem to actually exist yet.
As much as I like to pretend otherwise, digital comics are more than likely the future of the medium – I know, I know; I can’t quite get the same experience reading things on a screen as in print either, but then, I haven’t played with an iPad to date (Something any enterprising publisher and/or manufacturer can change with just one email! Don’t forget, comics professionals: I can be bought as easily as anyone else – I’m just blunt enough to actually admit it in public) – and if IDW do, in fact, manage to get a reliable and timely release schedule up for digital release on a monthly basis, I can’t help but think they’ll have vaulted to the front of some kind of line somewhere.
Y’see, the potential digital audience doesn’t have the same biases and preferences as the direct market, and the concept of smaller publishers fighting against the might of The Big Two falls even further to pieces when you realize that one of those two hasn’t bothered to show up just yet. And, to IDW’s credit, they’ve got a lot of big toys that a lot of people will recognize with their Transformers, GI Joe, Angel and True Blood licenses amongst others, as well. So, is this a case where being first and relatively recognizable is going to pay off?
I have the feeling that the answer is yes – although, admittedly, in large part because of faults and failures on others’ parts as much as it is on IDW’s successes. It’s not a won war, of course; just because the books will be out there doesn’t necessarily mean that people will want to read them – the, for want of a better way of putting it, fanboyishness of something like Transformers: Bumblebee may be a deterrent to newcomers who aren’t part of fan communities as much as it’s a lure for those who are, just like I worry that other people will share my surreal (and, to be honest, utterly unearned) distrust of Locke & Key (Once I actually read it, I loved it. But beforehand, I was convinced it would be terrible, and I can’t explain why). It’s also possible that IDW may end up teaching a new audience how to buy and read comics online – including introducing them to weekly releases, etc. – only for another company to come in with a larger catalog and try to crush them. But this feels like something where the trailblazing will actually pay off, both in terms of PR and customer loyalty.
So, if IDW is the first to set this hardcover/paperback-style print/digital two-pronged release up, who’ll be next? And when?
- June 1, 2010 @ 05:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Straight for the art | Tom Fowler’s Wildcat and Robin commission
Wildcat and Robin, by Tom Fowler
Ahead of this weekend’s HeroesCon, artist Tom Fowler has posted a bunch of wonderful pre-ordered commissions, ranging from The Thing giving a piggy-back ride to the Richards children to Mysterius the Unfathomable chastising his assistant Delfi. But the best piece easily is this one, of Wildcat taunting an unhappy Robin during a boxing lesson. I’m jealous of the person who gets this commission. Fowler will be at booth 408, between Steve Lieber and Jeff Parker.
- June 1, 2010 @ 02:01 PM by Kevin Melrose
The last word on superhero comics?
from Final Crisis by Doug Mahnke
Last week, Tom Spurgeon took a page from Monty Python and said he’d like to have an argument: “What are all these superhero comics really saying?” Given the genre’s domination of both the Direct Market and the comics internet, Spurgeon said he wanted to see a more in-depth discussion of what the heck is going on in these weird and wild comics, particularly regarding their heroes’ behavior and any potential larger message beyond “superheroes are awesome.”
In response, I proposed an argument of my own: “Why do superheroes dominate the online conversation the way they do?” In light of how many comics commentators and critics clearly read a wide variety of comics, or at least have been known to from time to time, I’m perplexed by why The Rise of Arsenal gets so much more airtime than Art in Time or 20th Century Boys.
- June 1, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Manga: Some good news for a change
Osamu Tezuka's Ayako, licensed by Vertical
The month of May brought a volley of bad news for the manga industry—the shutdown of CMX, layoffs at Viz, and Go! Comi slipping beneath the waves for the last time. But some observers are finding reasons for optimism nonetheless.
Dark Horse director of new development Michael Martens told PWCW’s Kai-Ming Cha that manga sales are up 13%, thanks to a mix of established adult series (Berserk, Gantz) and their new CLAMP ominbuses, and Ed Chavez of Vertical told Bookgasm’s Rod Lott that his company saw an 18% increase in revenues last year, due in large part to strong sales of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack.
Marten’s comment was made at BEA, where Cha found plenty of manga publishers hawking their wares. The two big guys, Viz and Tokyopop, didn’t have booths, but Viz CEO Hidemi Fukuhara was there to rub shoulders, Del Rey, Dark Horse, Yen Press, Japanime, and small-but-powerful Fanfare/Ponent Mon had reps at the show, and Fantagraphics was handing out galleys of their first Moto Hagio manga. And apparently, things were going on behind the scenes: Cha noted that BEA is mainly a trade show, so people were there to do business as much as to exhibit on the floor.
While larger publishers are having troubles, tiny Vertical is bringing over a number of fan-pleasers (Twin Spica, 7 Billion Needles, Peepo Choo,, Tezuka’s Ayako) and one manga they hope will break out to a wider readership, Chi’s Sweet Home. And Chavez notes that their best seller, Black Jack, has defied the usual law of diminishing returns:
Those laws affect every title, but BLACK JACK has now twice bucked that trend over the last 12 months. Last summer, BLACK JACK, already six volumes into its run, began to gain readers, with orders surpassing the two previous volumes. We are seeing the same trend for VOLUME 10, where orders are as high as they were around this time last year.
What’s next? The BEA picture suggests that the remaining manga publishers are still in the game, and with Yen Press planning new announcements at San Diego (and Fantagraphics flying in Moto Hagio for the event), the industry could be finding its footing again. Stay tuned.
- June 1, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
Leisure reading made easy: Spacedock 7
Cleopatra In Spaaace!, one of the finds at Spacedock 7
Webcomics collectives come and go, and some are more coherent than others, but the new sci-fi webcomics collective Spacedock 7 is pretty close to the ideal.
The interface is nice and clean. The seven comics in the group are all similar not only in subject matter but also in tone and style—not that they all look alike, but all have a fairly cartoony look. All are pretty good—I looked through them briefly and there’s no weakest link. Some are brand new, and others have been around for a while. Each comic updates once a week, so there’s always something to come back for (although Red’s Planet is already on hiatus, but hey—new baby, Reuben Awards, those are good excuses, and the creator has promised a definite return date). And these are the sort of comics that are easily accessible to new readers—you don’t have to know a complicated backstory or be able to decipher convoluted art to follow them. These comics are light reading at its best.
A simple home page leads not only to the seven comics (each of which is hosted on its own, separate site) but also to other features, without overwhelming the reader with clutter. This shouldn’t be remarkable, but understanding how to present information clearly and in some sort of hierarchy is often a challenge for web designers. Spacedock 7 gets it right, with separate, easy-to-find pages presenting short descriptions of each comic, author bios, and a list of everyone’s Twitter, Facebook, and Ustream info. And there’s a forum.
It’s worth a look for fans of light sci-fi, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for anyone thinking about starting a group site to swing by for a look as well.
- June 1, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Colette’s DC Comics fashion line now available
French clothing retailer Colette is selling the DC Comics clothing and accessories announced last week. You can check out what they’re offering on their website, from € 375 Batman logo T-shirts to € 900 Wonder Woman dresses to more “reasonably priced” € 49 T-shirts featuring covers to various comics.
That Superman scarf pictured above costs € 320, which is about $392. So, yeah …
- June 1, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Bizarro cartoonist Dan Piraro wins 2010 Reuben Award
"Bizarro," by Dan Piraro
Bizarro creator Dan Piraro won the 2010 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year, presented over the weekend by the National Cartoonists Society. He beat out fellow nominees Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Richard Thompson (Cul de Sac).
The organization also 13 divisional awards in categories ranging from feature animation to book illustration to comic books. Paul Pope won the latter for “Strange Adventures,” his Adam Strange strip serialized in DC’s Wednesday Comics, while David Mazzucchelli took home the graphic novels award for his critically acclaimed Asterios Polyp.
The full list of divisional winners can be found after the break:
- June 1, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Aw, Hex Yeah!
Ah, Hex Yeah!
We’ve seen Jonah Hex in a faux Justice League recently, so why not the Tiny Titans? Artist J. Bone offers a glimpse at what a Tiny Titans version of DC’s cowboy movie star might look like, squirt guns and all.
- June 1, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by JK Parkin
Hey look, it’s the cover for Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library #20
Acme Novelty Library #20 by Chris Ware
As if Memorial Day Weekend weren’t eventful enough for the nerd community, Blog Flume’s eagle-eyed Ken Parille spotted and posted the none-more-blue cover for the 20th installment of Chris Ware’s one-man anthology series, Acme Novelty Library. Subtitled “Lint,” the volume collects a chapter from the ongoing Rusty Brown graphic novel that Ware originally serialized in The Virginia Quarterly Review. The product description on Amazon reads like a bio for main character Jordan Wellington Lint; see if you can spot the quick phrase that hit me like a punch in the gut. The book hits shelves on October 12th of this year–earlier in the season than the last few releases, and hopefully early enough for the book to get ample consideration for year-end best-of listings. (Something tells me it’ll be worth considering.)
- June 1, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Tintin and Snowy
Legal | As rare Tintin memorabilia sold at a Paris auction for more than $1 million, an attorney for Moulinsart told a Brussels court that an attempt to ban the controversial Tintin in the Congo for racism is akin to book burning. “I cannot accept racism but I consider it equally lamentable that we burn books. To ban books is to burn them,” said Alain Berenboom, who represents the organization that controls the rights to Hergé’s works.
The civil case, which began last month, is the result of a nearly three-year-old effort by Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, a Congolese man living in Belgium, to have the book removed from the country’s bookstores, or at least sold with warning labels as it is in Britain. The Court of First Instance is expected to announce on June 21 whether it, or a trade tribunal, should consider the case. [Agence France-Presse]
- June 1, 2010 @ 07:55 AM by Kevin Melrose
Web scammer charged; once preyed on webcomickers
Beware of internet scams
Sam Jain makes a living by bilking the credulous, and one of his scams nearly took down the webcomic Penny Arcade.
That’s ancient history now (2001), but I’m sure there were smiles in some quarters when Jain was charged last week with 24 counts of wire fraud as well as one count of conspiracy. Jain’s two partners are in a heap o’ trouble as well, but as Jain is on the run (possibly in the Ukraine), he won’t be locked up anytime soon.
(Note: All the parties here are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but the allegations sure do make for entertaining reading.)
Jain’s latest scam used fake ads (on real websites) to trick computer users into thinking they had a virus; Jain and his partners then sold them fake anti-virus software to fix it. But back in 2000, when webcomics were still shiny and new, Jain ran an ad network called eFront that hosted, among other things, Penny Arcade and Something Awful. At first things were rosy, but then Jain stopped sending the checks, and creators had little recourse, because eFront controlled the websites. If you have a bit of time, take a trip through memory lane with this 2005 posting at Penny Arcade, in which Mike Krahulik digs up some chat logs that show Jain and his colleague Will Bryant discussing how to stop Krahulik’s public complaints about the company and even kick him and partner Jerry Holkins off the site and have another artist take over the strip.
- June 1, 2010 @ 06:00 AM by Brigid Alverson